It's common, especially in relation to post-Apocalyptic conditions, for books and films to refer to breeding programmes whose purpose is to enable a tiny human population to grow. But has anyone ever planned out a detailed programme, rather than just making general statements? I'm talking about making a list of all the males and females, including their ages and relatednesses, and timetabling "coupling" to maximise the production of new people. Concepts like choice and romance go out of the window, as the survivors of the Apocalypse repopulate the Earth, ever mindful of the need to avoid the genetic defects that would arise if people too closely related were to couple. And even more mindful of the knowledge that too low a rate of reproduction could/would result in extinction. I used to be (and probably still could be) a computer scientist mainly interested in artificial evolution, and I once had the idea of a project about this topic. I wanted to produce a heuristic that would take the details of a population (i.e. the aforementioned list) and generate some actual breeding programmes. It would have to be able to update itself over time in order to take into account the details of the changing population (genders of babies born, miscarriages, deaths of adults, etc.), and on the whole I imagine it would be very hard to actualise.
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Actually, this is probably the antithesis of eugenics because *everyone* would be pressed into reproducing.
I suppose I went a stage further and jumped to the conclusion that if you were going to do that, you'd choose the best combinations... Actually I was thinking about this: suppose they decided to get rid of different racial characteristics, and only permitted inter-racial breeding? Or the reverse, and prevented inter-racial procreation? Or decided to breed 2 races, scientists and morons, based on IQ? All sorts of things come to mind, don't they?
You might actually have a point about eugenics, not in relation to my (hypothetical) algorithm, but if it actually happened, because I can imagine the elders of this hypothetical population getting together and deciding that such-and-such mustn't be allowed to breed. The key thing would be the reason why. The racial angle did occur to me, and I suppose the most sensible thing would be for everyone to mix, to maximise the genetic diversity of the offspring. Your other notion reminds me of the Eloi and the Morlocks, and though I certainly wouldn't encourage such a bifurcation, it's an intriguing possibility.
There's already a tendancy for rich and successful people to marry others of the same kind, thus perpetuating a higher intelligence elite.
You're a fast replier, Sorcerer, like a cowboy shooting from the hip ;-) This reminds me of David Icke's theory of reptilian bloodlines (cf. the genealogy of American presidents) which we should probably interpret metaphorically!
There's a shed-load of stuff, including lots of youtube videos. Here's one page: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vida_alien/esp_vida_alien_29.htm
Erm, yes, not to be taken literally I should think! I can't find the link but there was an article some time ago which high-lighted the tendency of smart people to marry each other. Maybe someone has some links.
